Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.
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Curled up with Logan enjoying their morning cup, Rogue watched Jubilee bounce down the steps from her loft bedroom. Pausing at the landing, she sniffed and tilted her head looking at her first with her mate, but then started to tip toe up to Kitty who was laying sprawled out on the one chesterfield curled up in a blanket nursing a comically large mug of coffee with a bottle of Advil on hand.
Off in the adjoining kitchen Hank was cooking breakfast with a bit much jaunce to his step as he sang to himself. Stifling a giggle as Jubilee crouched in front of Kitty to sniff a few more times all while intently staring at her, Kitty cracked open an eye and growled at her curious friend.
"Go away." Kitty mumbled.
Jumping to her feet to turn her attention on Hank in the kitchen, he was cooking a few of Kitty's favourite breakfast dishes as well as brewing coffee by hand one cup at a time. Again Jubilee crouched and stared at Kitty who was now full on glaring at her.
"You two did it, didn't you?" Jubilee squealed.
"We're two consenting adults, not a couple of horny teenagers. Hank and I enjoyed one another's company last night is all." Kitty corrected.
Watching it all play out with a grin, Rogue felt more than heard Logan chuckling from their place on the love seat. They had been waiting for that moment all morning and now it was every bit the show they expected as Jubilee peeked under the blanket. They'd seen a slew of scratches, bruises and a few telltale bites all over Kitty that told that Hank was a bit of a beast in the bed after all.
"Dammit Lee, I'm gonna kick your..." Kitty started to grumble at the treatment she was enduring by the hands of her tormenter, all until a poke to her forehead silenced her.
Rogue immediately knew what had happened because all the trophies Kitty had earned the other night appeared on her friend and Familiar who stretched, groaned and then walked off to flop down in front of the fireplace that was lending its warmth to the morning.
"Did you just...?" Kitty asked as she jerked from the chesterfield with renewed vitality.
"Healed ya, yep. Coffee please." Jubilee moaned, stretching out and whining from aches and stiffness she didn't have moments before.
"I feel, wow. I feel good. That's amazing. Hmm." Kitty gasped as she explored her sudden recovery to then wander off to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee in thanks.
"Five bucks Kitty's thinking about going for another round." Rogue whispered to Logan.
"You know where my wallet is if you're just looking for a couple o' bucks babe."
Smiling indulgently at him, she curled up and enjoyed a sip of her coffee watching as Kitty started to flirt with the fella that was the object of her affection. Thinking again of a Christmas gift under the tree, she wondered just who would be more worn out after they got to trying out a few of the dances it described.
"Here, and thank you Lee." Kitty said, offering coffee and tucking her discarded blanket about the lady who had just saved her the recovery from her past night.
"S'alright, anytime. Just no hangovers. I actually got an alcohol tolerance now so I don't plan to be suffering from one too many. Yay no more getting tipsy off two beers!" Jubilee cheered.
"Yeah, well, we're still not lettin' ya near any Jagerbombs." Logan called down to her, earning himself a raspberry and a few laughs.
Hearing a light step rushing down the stairs, Kurt appeared scratching his head and yawning in a housecoat and boxers. Immediately the gathered looked from him to Jubilee after noticing the few bite marks Kurt wore.
"He wouldn't let me." Jubilee mumbled from her cozy spot before the fire.
"They are pleasant reminders." Kurt said as he curled up with his lady.
Lolling her head against Logan, Rogue felt his hand stroking her thigh at that place where her scars were still fading. It was something of an unconscious habit of his ever since they noticed it and she didn't mind it anymore. She longed for the day there would be unblemished skin there to greet his touch, at her thigh and near her breast. But she loved him so she would leave him be.
"Well, Doctor McCoy has a conference today so I'll be attending. I just can't believe some of the people who will be attending. Just what are you all going to be getting up to?" Kitty asked.
"Circus, practice, shopping." Jubilee purred from her cozy place in front of the fireplace.
"Renting a car, going for a drive." Rogue added, looking forward to that trip with her mate.
"Sounds fun. Truthfully this is supposed to be the Wagner's Honeymoon so I guess we'll just do our own thing for dinner." Kitty said with a look to the newlyweds.
"Yeah, I reckon a policy o' don't wait up would be best." Logan agreed.
Whether he noticed it or not Rogue didn't care, simply enjoying the feel of his touch over her belly as they sat curled together warming another. Now and again she looked to the kitchen to see Kitty and Hank getting to know another in their new intimacy. It was sweet to watch how he bent for her to steal treats he held between his lips, chaste kisses and lingering touches had between them.
"Well, I could use my morning routine s'long as my Darlin' is up for it." Logan asked wearing a smarmy smirk for his love.
"Just as long as ya carry me." Rogue whispered.
Ever one to bend to her wants or needs, Logan gathered her up but not quite like she had imagined. Instead just hefting her over his shoulder and walking off with her, it reminded him of Halloween and he looked down to the girl who had become a sister to him thinking of her little bit of mischief. She was being tended to by her own mate, tender and careful and with all the affection that did his heart good to see.
Too many years alone taught him what a friend was worth and what family meant, taught him what love was when he finally found it. Anyone who ever dared hurt the people he cared about again would have hell to pay, six knuckle deep without a single regret.
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"We made camp here. Jubilee got scared by a squirrel gathering firewood."
Walking hand in hand through the forest, the drive had taken a few hours with stops on the way. Standing at the edge of what had meant to have been their camp for the night, Rogue took another picture. There was snow now and the leaves had fallen to be hidden beneath the white blanket, while the boughs of pine were full and heavy.
"Am I allowed to call her on that?" Logan asked as he let himself be lead through the forest.
"Nope, sorry. Secret between you and me, you gotta promise me." Rogue whispered, the forest begging for quiet that she didn't want to intrude on.
He swore his oath with a kiss to her rosy cheek. Dressed in a knitted cap, fingerless gloves and scarf, she was warm enough for the cold but welcomed it too. She'd spent too many years covered up and sometimes it was thrilling just to feel the cold seep into her bare skin. Finding her way by her trail of pictures taken on that walk when she had left Jubilee sleeping back at the fire, she lead her love along.
That night she wished he had been with her, the moon full and beautiful and the world painted in a pale blue. Now the sun was just waning with noon behind them, a lunch spent at a roadside restaurant and practising her German again. But this trip was something else, it was about the Danger Room and slow dances, making memories to think of with the old ones. Taking a picture of rabbit tracks, she hopped over them thinking it a crime to ruin them.
She had missed him that first night driven mad by that longing that had dogged her the entire trip. There were so many moments she just wanted him there to see something with her and not just the figment taken with a photo. Feeling her eyes grow damp at those thoughts, a gentle touch brushed away a tear that stung because of the cold.
"I'm here babe, never gonna leave ya."
Until death do we part. She wondered just how long he would live, a hundred more years, two hundred? Could he live up to his promise? Taking a trembling breath and smiling to him, she walked on looking for the next photo as she retraced her steps up to that moment a wolf changed her life.
"I slept for a day after it happened, I had Quoth and Jubilee waiting for me with all the answers I needed to hear. I didn't even know how hard it was on Jubilee, she was just so happy when I woke up. I didn't know until that first night back we got to meddling in John and Bobby's love life."
Her scent probably told him enough to know how she felt, because his was a mix of wary and what she knew to be a mess of concerned. She was getting practised at telling everything by a sniff, often it just evoked the same feeling in her. Pulled close, she stumbled a step but caught herself.
"Makes sense really, waking up naked or in her case with just everything she had on in shreds. I remember doing it, I remember running her down and then...and then I just bit her, claimed her, made her mine. She was too tired and scared to run anymore and after it she just curled up against me and I kept her warm."
And Jubilee thought they had been raped and had been relieved to know Quoth was real and it was all real and she wasn't just crazy. Rubbing her eyes against her wool-knit gloves, she ground her knuckles into them and let go of a long breath.
"No more sorry..." Rogue said aloud for herself, understanding just how Logan felt every time his hands brushed her scars.
"We're all about done with sorry ain't we?" Logan asked.
"Yeah, yeah we are. She's forgiven me, she likes it and every time I see the black wolf it makes it easier. She's happy and it's made us sisters. But it still hurts to remember that first night, hurts that she kept that from me. I know how you feel Logan..." Rogue whispered once again, resting her hand over the scars near her breast.
Sniffling and not for the cold, she let him take his gift from her and carefully hang it on a branch, just some snapped off twig from a pine. She let herself be trapped by him with her back to the trunk, trapped between his arms that held her and comforted her, looking up into his eyes and seeing her guilt in them. They each had been forgiven, but it was for them to forgive themselves.
The kiss was slow, sensual, and said they had all the time in the world. The sun could set and the stars could rise and she didn't care if it took that long for them to tire of the embrace. Her walk was about having new memories of where her journey as the Witch of the Wolf Spirit began. And while maybe the heavens hadn't quite moved as much as she thought they would have when she broke breathless and panting, her world had been shaken.
Guilt was a chain Dickens had wrote of, so she would learn to forgive herself her mistakes that had been forgiven by the ones she had hurt.
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"Would you like your fortune told?"
Jubilee had been wandering the circus on her own knowing Kurt was but a call away if she got lost. Still just a bit stiff and sore from practice, Gretchen had gleefully set her to task after their reunion of hugs and introductions to all the other acrobats and trapeze artists. Spinning on her heel at the new voice, she found a lady sitting on the steps to a caravan shuffling a deck of tarot cards looking like a cat who had once been bored until a little birdie had landed at the feeder.
"Is that stuff real? I mean I've never been to a real circus so fortune tellers are always those kinda gypsy ladies you see in a tent, and then..." Jubilee asked, rambling along with her experience when a thought came to her.
Spinning on heel once more, she looked away from the lady offering to tell her fortune, counting out to ten and turning back. The lady looked more than amused as she gave her deck a last shuffle.
"Disappear? Well, I'm still here."
"Okay, so what do I gotta do to get ya to tell my fortune?" Jubilee asked as she skipped up.
"To start with perhaps introductions, I am Amanda, and you are the wife Wagner."
"That some psychic stuff or did ya just hear that I was coming?" Jubilee asked.
"I had a dream a wolf was coming, and lo here you are. But I am surprised to see that you are the wife of an old flame, don't worry though...we were just children." Amanda said with a enigmatic smile.
"Uh...okay." Jubilee mumbled as she took that fact in.
"Just clear yourself, relax, and find peace with the duality of your soul. Once you're ready cut the deck."
Feeling foolish again for thinking fortune telling was real, as much as she'd seen of the world and how it dared to defy explanation the future was an unfixed point made up of all the choices made. But looking into the startling blue eyes and that smile that bespoke mystery and just perhaps real magic, she did as she had been instructed wondering about the duality of her soul Amanda had mentioned.
"Now, choose three cards." Amanda urged as she fanned out the deck.
Pointing to three, Jubilee watched as Amanda laid them out on the step of her camper where she had a silky purple cloth laid out and held tight from the breeze by a handful of change. The first was a tower much like one made famous in Pisa for its lean, the second was a single sword, and the last was a devil turned upside down. Letting out a nervous laugh, Jubilee looked to Amanda whose eyes alone seemed to reassure her.
"Past, present and future." Amanda noted, pointing to each card as they had come out.
"The tower, it tells of change that has happened in your life. I sense you are no stranger to change the wife Wagner, you have a sorrow to you, people you miss. But you have done well, the tower guides one to accept change because holding too tight to the past is the path to disaster."
Hunching down before Amanda, Jubilee wrapped her arms about her knees looking up to this lady who claimed to have been a childhood sweetheart of her husband. A sniff told the truth as Amanda believed it, and the words rang of too much truth. Looking at the next, a single sword, it made her think of Excalibur.
"The Ace of Swords, it speaks of a new beginning. My mother told me of an old adage that suits this card because it often calls for one to be brave. Feel the fear and do it anyway."
"Gretchen said that to me when I was being a chicken." Jubilee laughed, thinking of how she had been urged to take her leap and trust Kurt to catch her.
"Then it seems you have much bravery and I look forward to watching you dance with my old flame."
Looking down to the last one, the one for the future, Jubilee closed her eyes again in that foolish attempt to make sure it was all real. Too much truth had been told by the cards, and opening her eyes she was reassured to see Amanda sitting there waiting patiently for her to find a bit of that bravery the Ace of Swords cautioned her about.
"The devil reversed, just like Kurt there is nothing sinister about this card. Trust yourself and look beyond what you see, don't fall for illusions because as I think you know the world is not what it seems. You are never without hope or help, remember that if you ever think yourself trapped."
"Is this real?" Jubilee asked feeling once again nervous.
"The cards give us advice, insight and let us reflect on the past. Nothing is set in stone, but whether you believe your fortune is up to you."
Gathering up her cards and shuffling them again, Amanda smiled to her guest in her mysterious way. Popping up and stretching out the stiffness of her legs, when she looked back this time Amanda was gone but nothing so magical as the caravan vanishing. The clatter of the door told where she had wandered. Feeling curious enough to knock, taking a step forward to do just that her phone startled her.
"Uh, bye! The husband Wagner calls, I'll see later!" Jubilee called to the caravan, turning off and retracing her steps mostly by smell having gotten herself plenty lost in her wanderings.
Unnoticed as she left though there were blue eyes peeking out a window with a smile, the snap of blinds hiding her a moment before the curious black wolf turned on her heel one last time to eye her own circus fortune teller. With a shrug she rushed off, eager to talk to Kurt about his old flame and dig for details.
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